“Upon seeing the opportunity to get an early release black tea from a plantation that specializes in Oolong… I couldn’t resist the offer and spent perhaps a few dollars more than I ought...”
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“Recently there was a post on Steepster/Teatra.de about a special offer to buy a pre-release pack of Zealong black tea. It seemed a bit pricey but I love trying new stuff so I put in an order for...”
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5 Tasting Notes

I think this is my first zealong tea so I wasn’t too sure what to expect here. She told me it wasn’t a good short steeper so I used the regular teapot method here and steeped it for 4 minutes. I think I had 2 tsp. or so of tea for an 18 oz. teapot.

I got a medium brownish red tea liquor here. The flavor of the tea is slightly malty and grainy with a very nice floral element. I’m impressed by the lovely sweet tone in the finish of this tea. It lingers for a while and is very pleasant; has a smooth almost creamy quality. This is an easy tea to sip on plain and I am really enjoying it this morning. It reminds me a bit of some Chinese congou teas I have had recently.

Thanks for the sample Dorothy!

Preparation

Steepsterite Sandy actually went to the plantation and had tea there in New Zealand. Chicago Tea Room used to carry their teas. There was Zealong Dark, Zealong Light, and Zealong Aromatic I think at that time.

Yes, and I carried samples of them on my site for a short time as well. Here is the selection…
1. Zealong Pure
2. Zealong Aromatic
3. Zealong Dark
Those mentioned above are listed from lightest to darkest and are all oolong.
The newest to the Zealong family is Zealong Black. This is not an oolong but an actual black tea. It is amazing, clean, but all are very pricey in my opinion. I actually have an unopened back that I bought directly from Zealong at the World Tea Expo in Las Vegas. I hadn’t considered post it online for purchase (sample sizes only of course) only because I felt maybe the cost would be unreasonable.
Overall, the cost is the only draw back. They are a wonderful producer of high quality teas but just not at most tea drinkers budget. Of course I could be wrong. :)

Upon seeing the opportunity to get an early release black tea from a plantation that specializes in Oolong… I couldn’t resist the offer and spent perhaps a few dollars more than I ought to have in order to be a part of this.

The leaves are large, dark, and gorgeous to me. The scent of the dry leaf is full-bodied and sweet. But not sweet in a sugar or fruit sort of way to me. It’s sweet like a handful of grain.

I opted to brew this gong fu style first in a 100 mL gaiwan. Each infusion was around 1-2 minutes (depending on the infusion), so perhaps I will try this again gong fu style with shorter infusions.

The liquor is a deep amber with a surprisingly mellow aroma. As Dorothy noted, it definitely is malty with a touch of barley. Drinking the tea is smooth. There is no astringency or bitterness to my palate. At first, I couldn’t quite identify what I was tasting. It was robust but mellow. There was a heartiness without being too much.

After a while, I realized that tasting this tea reminds me of tasting craft beers. There are a lot of the same flavors working their way through the tea as I have experienced in beer. It’s almost like there’s a very light hoppy after-taste that I find especially pleasant.

I’m looking forward to trying this again with shorter infusions and again in a western style pot.

Preparation

It was a bit. It was advertised first on Tea Trade as an offer to TT members only. Then TT posted about it in the discussion section here if anyone wanted to head over, join, and order. I was already on TT, so I put my name in the hat basically immediately. While all the early release has already been sent out, it sounds like this will be available in the US at some point. Not sure too much on details, though. :P

If you are on or head over to Tea Trade, it is @yaya who arranged all this. :)

Recently there was a post on Steepster/Teatra.de about a special offer to buy a pre-release pack of Zealong black tea. It seemed a bit pricey but I love trying new stuff so I put in an order for 50g. (Although to be fair, the price is on-par with other high end black teas I buy)
My package came in the mail today, and along with the tea I ordered there were a few goodies: a photo of a Zealong picker in a tea field, photo of a tea cup in snow, and 2 tea samples (gaba oolong and FF ruby darjeeling).

For my first tea session I will be brewing it “western style” once at 3mins. Next time I’ll do multiple short steeps in a 100ml tea vessel.

Dry leaf appearance: big broad leaves

Liquor scent: malty, grainy

Flavour: Starts off very light, grainy, malty, with a sweet after taste. As I kept drinking, I started picking up on a unique flavour, not sure how to describe it other than “grapey”. It’s not a muscatel or concord grape kinda flavour. The tea body wasn’t bitter or had much astringency. Reminds me a bit of the “oolong-black” tea I tried from Yuuki-Cha.

Next time I brew this western style, I’ll try it at 5 minutes. The tea body is very light, so I think it could benefit from a longer steep time. This is my second experience with a tea from New Zealand. Before this I tried the Zealong Pure oolong, which I thought was pretty good. They all seem to be quite smooth and lack a sharp astringency.

Overall I found this to be an interesting black tea, but I won’t rate it until I do a short steep session.

Lovely, light, sweet! In addition it have this beautiful sweet floral fragrance that I could not stop sniffing. It is not a morning wake you up cup of tea but a slightly floral sipping tea. It is delicate on the tongue, but with enough presence to make sure you know it’s delicious.